Monday, July 13, 2009

Just got the new Palm Pre, offered by Sprint. I'm usually not an early adopter. That allows other people to work out the bugs for me. But I was ready to be off my Treo 700p and something more iPhone-like.

I've had it for three days now. Spent a few hours working on getting it up to speed. It's an awesome phone and I'm glad I have it. I certainly recommend it.

Check out Sprint's website for the Palm Pre for a fancy presentation. The phone goes a little slower than the presentation. Sometimes quite slow. But I found based on several videos on YouTube that the phone is faster with most things compared to the iPhone 3G and a few things on the iPhone 3Gs.

My top issues with it are:

When typing and wanting to change a word earlier in a sentence or paragraph, it's EXTREMELY hard to put your cursor at the right point. I talked with tech support today and the engineers are aware of this and are thinking through ways to offer a solution in future software updates.

Battery life is really short. Definitely not better than the iPhone. Probably worse. I certainly have to charge each day. If I have a couple long conversations, I have to charge even earlier in the day. There are some extended batteries one can buy, however--unlike with the iPhone.

BlueTooth goes off if it's not connected to a device. Just talked with tech support on this one as well. Even if you switch it on within the phone, if you don't have something connected to it soon thereafter, it will disengage. Then if a Bluetooth device comes close to it, the device won't recognize the Pre until the Bluetooth application is started.

It isn't a problem yet, but plugging in the charging cable will get on my nerves. It has a flap covering the port and it's really hard to get off. They offer a charger that doesn't require you to connect anything to the phone (Touchstone). Cool, yes. Expensive, definitely. However, I found a site out there that offers it for $50.

At this point, I don't really have any other complaints. I've worked with several of their apps. And they do need more, but it's only been out about two months, so I expect more to come. Sprint stores can't keep the phone in stock.

Problems Importing Info from Old Phone.

Contacts and Calendar. I had trouble getting information from my Outlook. It's connected via Microsoft Exchange with my company. The Pre is supposed to have that ability, but it depends on how a company setup their Exchange system. Due to the immediate complexity, I used Google's services for contacts and calendar. I exported my contacts via CSV and imported to my Google account. I then downloaded Google's calendar sync program for Outlook. So, the calendar stays relatively up-to-date, but my contacts will get out of date eventually. I'm still working with my I.T. department on an Exchange solution.

Memos and Word Docs. I have not transferred over my memos (if possible) and my Word documents. The latter shouldn't be hard, but I may have to let go of all my memos. If you have a non-MSExchange version of Outlook, transferring everything to your Pre is really easy for free. They offer a DTA program. But it only transfers the information once. It's not a sync program. You'll have to buy a third party app to continue doing that. However, if you use Google services for calendar, contacts, etc, it stays up-t0-date on the phone pretty effortlessly.

Other than those things, I'm impressed with the phone. As I understand it talking with other iPhone users, moving data to the iPhone wouldn't have been easier. I certainly recommend the phone. It's worth going to a store and playing with it.

About Me

Relationship development. Data-driven. Personalized marketing.
I am passionate about leading teams toward and developing marketing strategies focused on improving customer relationships. It’s easy for businesses to think a customer relationship begins with a product introduction and ends with a sale, but the real relationship begins from the first time they hear about a product and continues almost infinitely.
I dream of the day when a person comes to a website and experiences an unknowingly personalized online store just for them. Design, layout, messaging, and product selections all centered around the individual customer. Can we do it? Responsive marketing, social media, SEO, email marketing, user experience optimization, and simplicity all feed into creating a more personalized experience. Tie in more relational messaging and a company responsively listening, and you have created an ideal concept of customer-centric marketing. Whether that be analytics implementation or analysis, programming, design, user experience optimization, SEO, social media, advertising, or project management, every aspect plays a part in creating a more loyal and returning customer.